Authority & Accountability

Romans 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

I read this week about the need for revival in America. The late Pastor Adrian Rogers wrote: that our generation doesn’t like the word authority. We don’t like to be under anybody. We’re of a generation of anti-authority figures. The anthem was, “Do your thing. If it feels good, do it.” Many of us dare not realize the vestiges of rebellion that still lurk down in our hearts. We need to give some serious thought to the question: Who is on the throne of my life today?  Pastor Greg Laurie asks the action question: “How can we change a culture that has forgotten God? I’d add, or reduced God to insignificance in the individual’s life to where God seldom crosses one’s mind. Pastor Greg goes on to say that he believes the church needs a spiritual awakening and the secular culture needs to hear the gospel. In far too many churches, evangelism has been reduced to humanistic “good works” of building community connections without mentioning sin, salvation or a Savior – the answer of the gospel, ignoring the gospel message:

1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. 2. Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life. 3. Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life. 4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives. Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional  experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will. - Campus Crusade for Christ

The word ‘Gospel” means “Good News”. But before you can appreciate “good news”, you have to hear “bad news”. It’s the “bad news” that makes the “good news” good. Hence, my mentor Bill’s main saying, “You have to know what you have been saved from before you can know what you have been saved to.” People who do not know that they are lost in sin and spiritually dead will not seek salvation and egotistic people think that they are too good to be damned. To get people “saved”, you have to get them to understand that they are lost. The authority of the Creator of the Universe is over all His creation and all are accountable, but we need to see also that the first spiritual law is that this Creator of heaven and earth loves us and offers a wonderful plan for our life. If the world (one person at a time) will believe in the gospel light of Jesus and follow the Lord, then a revival, a spiritual awakening, a changed culture, the salvation of souls by grace and the abundant life will be reality. God is good. All the time. That is the gospel truth. That’s good news!

In Christ, Brian